6o Recent Literal are. [jumKny 



print. During the fifty years which have ehipsed since the original pub- 

 lication of the 'Manual' our knowledge of the subject has greatly advanced, 

 and much that Nuttall wrote, including especially his classification and 

 the more technical parts of his work, have become obsolete, while his 

 statements respecting the distribution of some of the species require 

 revision. But his biographies have for the most part lost none of their 

 truthfulness and charm. It is, therefore, a subject of congratulation that 

 the successors of the original publishers of the 'Manual' have decided to 

 reissue the work in a modernized form, eliminating from it the obsolete 

 and erroneous parts and supplementing it by a brief resumd of the 

 advances made since Nuttall's time. 



Mr. Chamberlain, to whom was intrusted the preparation of the new 

 edition, has done his work fairly well, considering the limitations by 

 which he was doubtless necessarily restricted by his publishers, the new 

 edition, while more generously illustrated than the original work, con- 

 taining much less matter. The many pages devoted by Nuttall to general 

 remarks on the higher groups, as orders and families, are wholly dis- 

 carded, as are his rather elaborate descriptions of the genera and species. 

 Also a number of his species are omitted, for reasons to be given later. 

 Although Nuttall's classification and nomenclature are both very {)roperly 

 eliminated, his arrangement of the species is, with slight exceptions, re- 

 tained, thus preserving to a great degree the original character and appear- 

 ance of the 'Manual.' 



Of Nuttall we thus have his charming 'Introduction' reproduced nearly 

 in full, and the principal part of his biographies. The new matter con- 

 sists of new vernacular and technical names, a short diagnosis of gener- 

 ally about three to five lines in small type, — often too brief to be of much 

 importance beyond giving a general idea of the appearance of the bird, — 

 while about five lines more of similar type tell the story of the nest and 

 eggs, aside from the information Nuttall's biographies may chance to 

 give. Nuttall's biographical matter follows next, with at the end, as 

 occasion may require, a few lines, again in smaller type, by Mr. Chamber- 

 lain, qualifying or supplementing Nuttall's account, generally relating to 

 the geographical range of the species, as now known. 



In general style the new edition, in typographic arrangement, recalls 

 the old, though the size of the paper is larger and the general eftect more 

 modern ; the illustrations are more numerous and better, some of those 

 made expressly for the work being excellent; others, however, are far 

 from satisfactory. In two instances figures of European species are given 

 in place of figures of the birds they purport to represent (see Vol. II, pp. 

 S6 and 340), and the figure of Wilson's Warbler (Vol. I, p. 167) is mis- 

 placed. 



Nuttall's 'Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada' 

 was a handbook of the subject as then known. It is hence natural to 

 expect that a 'Popular Handbook of the Ornithology of the United States 

 and Canada, based on Nuttall's Manual,' would be for the present day 

 AVhat Nuttall's 'Manual' was in its day. But alas, while the title-page 



